Nairobi Kenya Bans Hijab In High School, Mombasa Muslims Angered

September 28, 2012

September 25, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Though the event is limited to a single high school in Nairobi, Kenya, Mombasa's Muslims have reacted to the banning of hijab in the neighboring city with anger.

In a dispatch at the All Africa news website The banning took place as a result of a judicial ruling in Nairobi which found that Kenya High School's [a girls only institution with an enrollment of 800] argument, that allowing certain girls to distinguish themselves by wearing the religious head garment would disrupt the high school's desire to promote a sense of equality through similarity in dress overweighed the claimed religious concerns of the Muslim litigants.

Hijab is worn in vary degrees by women within the Muslim world. It is generally not considered a requirement by Shari'a and has most widely been adopted by Muslims of Arabic origin.

In the Islamic countries which repress women the most, Iran and Saudi Arabia, religious headgear is mandatory to the point that hijab is considered insufficient and instead require the wearing of the full body covering, the burqa.

Since Iranians are not Arabs this is an exception to the ethnic linkage to the manner in which religious head gear laws are observed.

The overwhelming majority of Kenya's population are tribal, either Bantu or Nilotes [believed to have originally immigrated from Egypt's Nile Valley]. Arabs comprise less than one 1% of the ethnic mix.The city of Mombasa, a primarily Christian city in a Christian country, has over the last month seen a campaign of Muslim against Christian violence.

As we noted yesterday in Mombasa Kenya New Flashpoint For Muslim Aggression the Kenyan city of Mombasa, the country's largest, has been hit by a wave of Muslim on Christian violence recently. The pretext being used to fuel the aggression was the government's assassination of a major al-Shabaab terrorist, Aboud Rogo. Rogo has a long jihadist history.

"...At least five churches, including the Salvation Army one in the poor Muslim district of Majengo, were attacked during heavy rioting, local religious leaders say. Other churches have been attacked with grenades in separate incidents over the past year..."

We see the controversy at Kenya High School as part of a larger Islamist move in East Africa, with Somalia's terrorist al-Shabaab as the primary instigator.

Of course without fresh recruits, terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab would not be able to continue to wage the jihad at this level.

With this in mind the group has over the last 5-7 years been conducting da'wa operations in areas of the United States that are heavily populated by Muslims, many of whom originally came this country to escape the endless cycle of jihadistic warfare in Africa.

"...A wave of Americans traveling to Somalia to fight with Al Shabaab, an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group, has been described by the FBI as one of "highest priorities in anti-terrorism."

These Americans have received weapons training alongside recruits from other countries ..Most of the American men training with Al Shabaab are believed to have been radicalized in the U.S., especially in Minneapolis, according to U.S. officials. The FBI alleges that these young men have been recruited by Al Shabaab both on the Internet and in person..."

"A Minnesota man recently traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, a spokesman for his family said, renewing fears that the terror group is continuing to recruit Somalis living in the U.S. to return to their homeland to fight.

The investigation into al-Shabaab's recruitment of young men has been going on for years, and authorities have never ruled out that more men could be traveling from Minnesota -- home to the largest Somali population in the U.S. -- to join the terror group...in recent weeks, some Somalis here have been visited by the FBI and subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury -- possible signs that the investigation has picked up. The reasons for the subpoenas were not immediately clear. Authorities would not confirm that additional men have recently traveled to join al-Shabaab, and they would not say whether any increased FBI activity is connected to reports of recent departures or to the overall investigation...according to a spokesman for his family, 21-year-old Omar Farah left Minneapolis several weeks ago and called his aunt after his departure to say he was in the Somali town of Merca -- and that he was with al-Shabaab..."

Though some, including this president, are claiming that al-Qaeda has been decimated in the wake of bin-Laden's death, the reverse is really the case. Instead of standing and fighting in hostile situations which brought them directly [when there was an actual hot war on terror being conducted] into conflict with the U.S. military, the jihadists have simply picked up camp and moved to safer climes, i.e., especially other failed states such as Somalia.

From these safer locales al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and the dozens of other similarly aligned terror groups, the jihad can be spread with much greater effect and far less risk.